


Gal Noir and the Femme Fatale

by Curlscat



Category: The Sisters Grimm - Michael Buckley
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-19 06:04:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11891580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Curlscat/pseuds/Curlscat
Summary: Daphne is alone and faking her way through the tough underworld of her city. It's the only way to make it as a Private Investigator in these parts. When Red walks into her office, though, everything changes.





	Gal Noir and the Femme Fatale

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheGingerAvenger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGingerAvenger/gifts).



She walked into my office like a bad cliche: golden brown curls down her back, wearing a little red number that showed just how long her legs were. And damn, were they long. The girl might as well have been all leg.

But I was getting distracted.

I could tell she was bad news from the second she opened the door. Flies followed her like a dead thing. Or maybe that was just the ripped screen on my office window.

“Are you Daphne Grimm?” she asked.

She might not have been the brightest tool in the shed, all things considered. That was what it said on the door. And on my desk: Daphne Grimm, P.I. And I was the one sitting behind the desk.

Still, cash was cash. And this dame was obviously swimming in it. So I nodded and smiled at her. I like to smile at my customers. Puts them at ease. Keeps me safer.

She took a deep breath and sat down across the desk from me. It looked like she’d deflated, like a half-full volleyball that got hit a little too hard. “I need your help,” she said. “My father’s missing.”

The dame’s name was Red. I knew it had to be code for something, and I thought I knew who she was: Red Riding Hood, ex spy, notoriously mentally unstable. Her dad, Mr. Tobias Canis, had gone missing two weeks ago.

“The police didn’t do anything,” she told me.

Probably because Mister Canis was as crooked as his daughter, I thought. But what the hell. My clients don’t pay me to stay on the right side of the law. They pay me to find things. And they do it ‘cause I’m good at what I do and I can keep my mouth shut.

So all I did was ask her to walk me through what happened.

“I came home for the weekend and the house was a wreck,” she told me. Her voice was trembling a little. A good show. Not too dramatic, just enough to draw sympathy. Surprised the cops didn’t fall over her. “I haven’t seen or heard from him since.”

“No ransom?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “The police think maybe he just left, or he got into trouble and he’s hiding, or- but they won’t do anything!”

“And he wouldn’t,” I finish for her. It’s the same story every time with missing persons. They wouldn’t just leave without saying anything. They’d never get mixed up with the mafia. Of course they don’t have a meth addiction. Sometimes the family is even right.

Sometimes they’re not.

But there’s never any way to know 'til I check it out.

* * *

The first stop was the house. Red took me there herself- even drove her car. It was nicer than mine. A lot nicer. Not 'cause it was a Mercedes or anything, but 'cause my car is barely holding itself together.

The house was a wreck. Not as much as my car, of course, at least outside. Inside, though? Inside was terrible. Papers everywhere, furniture turned on its side, paintings ripped off the walls- even wallpaper, in some places. There were gouges in the drywall- a fight. Weapons.

“I thought you said this happened two weeks ago,” I said, trying not to let my voice get too suspicious. “This place doesn’t look like it’s been touched.”

“It hasn’t,” she answered, voice a little hollow. “I know not to mess with a crime scene before the police show up. And they looked at the evidence for a bit, told me not to mess it up in case they needed it further down the line, and left. I’ve been staying at school, mostly.”

She had a look on her face like she was lost, like she needed a hug or something. But I still wasn’t ready to trust her. I started poking through the evidence.

I hoped I could find a lead.

* * *

The thing about missing persons is that you’ve gotta get there early. The more you wait, the more things fade. With stolen things, waiting is actually good. Let the thief get complacent, then they start flashing it around a little. Same with trying to figure out someone’s secrets: you wait, eventually they’ll slip up. Missing persons, though? Of the three kinds of cases I get to work regularly, they’re the hardest.

People never come to me unless the police have botched things. And by then it’s almost always too late.

I didn’t wanna tell Red this, though. You know how hard that is? Telling someone that if there was gonna be a ransom, it’d have turned up already? That if someone was planning on giving their loved one back, there’d be some sign? That the longer we wait, the colder the trail gets?

It’s damn hard, is what it is.

So I didn’t say anything. I just followed the trail. As well as I could, anyway.

Lucky for me, there was enough of a trail to follow. Canis bled a lot on his way out of the house. Or someone did, anyway.

The blood petered out, then stopped entirely, in an alley a few streets away from the house. Odd that they’d walk him so far away before getting into a car or something. Unless, of course…

There was something here that was special.

I poked around for a couple hours, but I didn’t find anything particularly useful. And I spent the next three days doing the same thing: poking, mostly. I also questioned anyone who might have been a witness. Nothing.

Obviously, my employer wasn’t too happy about this.

“Well, it would help if you could give me something to go on!” I snapped one day when she made it clear that she’d been hoping for better results from someone with a reputation like mine.

“Don’t you think I’d tell you if I knew?” she demanded. “I want him found more than anyone!”

“I don’t know!” I snapped back. “I’d like to think you want him found, but a dame with your history? I just can’t be sure!”

“A dame like me?” she nearly shrieked. “And what’s that supposed to mean?” she was defensive, though. I could tell.

“I know who you are,” I said. “Did you think I wouldn’t figure it out? It’s my job to find out secrets.”

She glared at me for a second, and I could see the assassin that was terrified throughout the dark side of the city for that moment. Then she did that thing again where she collapsed in on herself, and it was almost impossible to believe she’d ever be capable of terrifying anyone.

Thing is, she was breathtaking both ways.

But that wasn’t the point.

The point is that she was going to tell me her story now. I recognized her body language enough to figure that out.

“He’s not… really my father,” she started. “But you knew that already.”

Now that depended on whether or not you counted adoption as parenthood. I did, for the record. Still do.

“My grandma… when she died, I was just getting started as the girl I used to be. The one they made me into. And then a job went bad. Someone followed me home, and she got caught in the crossfire.”

I knew this, too. I made a point to keep up with the criminal underbelly. Even the ones who got their start back when I was still just a kid in foster care.

“She was the only family that would put up with me,” the dame continued. “So when she was gone, I had nobody. And he… it took a while, but he got me out of there. Got us out of that whole life. We’ve been living normal ever since. Or as normal as you can when…” she gestured futilely at nothing.

“He was the one that killed your grandma,” I said, realizing.

She nodded. “Rival groups, but he and I have the same history. They made us monsters. And he’s been teaching me how to be human ever since.” She smiled a little, wistfully. “I haven’t broken with reality in years.”

Which brought up a question I really didn’t want to have to ask. But it had to be made clear. “And you’re sure,” I said, slowly, carefully. “Sure that neither of you had an… episode? That neither of you could have anything to do with why he disappeared?”

For a second, I thought she might slap me, she looked so hurt. Then her expression relaxed, and she said, “Yeah. I… we keep journals, to make sure we’re not breaking. And we check in with each other.”

I sat up straight. Now here was something I could use! “Can I see it?”

* * *

She didn’t want to show me her father’s journal. Not that I could blame her. Seems like a private kind of thing, I guess (I wouldn’t know. My journals are open to people who need them. Family tradition). But I talked her around eventually.

Most of it was pretty boring. Just basic 'I remember everything I did today, and this is what it was,“ rote, day-to-day kinds of things. Every once in a while there’d be something a little bit creepy, but that was it.

Until maybe a week before his disappearance, that is.

He started talking about being worried that he was relapsing, or developing new symptoms. Apparently, he had some sort of dissociative identity disorder, and he blacked out a lot of the time when he wasn’t in control of himself. That wasn’t happening, but he thought he was imagining things- he’d find the doors unlocked, or things not where he’d left them.

So. Someone was breaking into his house. Trying to make him think he was going crazy? Or as a prologue to kidnapping him?

I didn’t know, but damned if I wasn’t going to find out.

* * *

I started following up leads on Canis’ old life. It was starting to look a lot more likely that someone from his past had come back to do this. Revenge was the only motive I could think of, anyway.

Red was there three quarters of the time. Normally I find it pretty damn annoying when my employers won’t step back and let me do my job in peace, but she wasn’t a problem. For one thing, she didn’t ask five hundred questions all the time. She seemed to be following my train of thought pretty well. And she was good at staying in the shadows, not making a spectacle of herself (pretty impressive, considering what a knockout she was).

She was still pretty impatient that I find her dad and all, but I almost didn’t mind the company.

I hadn’t had a partner since my sister and I had our falling-out. I’d forgotten how nice it could be.

* * *

The break in the case came when I looked into the deeds for the houses on the street where Canis disappeared. One of them was a rental owned by a shell company for Red’s old bosses.

Which meant we’d have to pay them a little visit.

"You’re not going,” Red said when I told her what I’d found out.

“Excuse me?” I demanded. “You hired me to get your father back! I ain’t backing out now!”

“I hired you to find him,” she said. “And you did. You’re done now.”

I scoffed. As if I’d let that stop me.

She looked at me, really looked at me, and smiled a little bit. “You’re softer than you want people to think you are, aren’t you?”

All right, so I’m about as true to myself as Flynn Rider is in Tangled. Doesn’t mean anything. And I have never appreciated people pointing out that the tough P.I. thing is an act. But when a girl like that looks at you and smiles like that? You don’t argue.

Then she kissed me.

“Thank you,” she said, “for all your help. But I can’t put you in danger like this.” She walked out while I was still stunned, frozen.

It took a good five minutes for me to shake it off. Because maybe I’d been wondering what her mouth would feel like for about as long as I’d known her, but it hadn’t prepared me at all. And damn could that girl kiss.

But hell if I was gonna let that keep me from finishing my job.

* * *

I followed her to the headquarters, of course. It was a pretty normal-looking office building, seventies construction, mildly ugly but serviceable, not exactly what you’d expect from an international assassin’s headquarters. Nice and nondescript.

Inside, she was yelling at someone. I didn’t pay much attention to that. They had guns. She had a gun. I don’t do well with guns.

And it looked like something of a stalemate. So I… left her to it.

What? I never claimed to be a hero.

While everyone was focusing on that, I started trying to figure out where they’d keep a prisoner in a building like this. Not the basement; too obvious. But the building registry said 'guest offices’ on the seventh floor, and that seemed promising. What kind of assassin’s guild has guests? Plus, high enough off the ground that jumping would be suicide, too many floors to make it easy to just walk out… That was definitely where they were keeping him.

I took the elevator, and thank whoever was listening, nobody noticed. It couldn’t have worked out better if Red had planned to just go in and cause a distraction.

He was in an 'office’ right in the middle of the floor, looking just like the picture Red had given me: tall, thin, with wild white hair. Not drugged- thank whoever, again- but chained up pretty damn tight, and locked up. My sister taught me how to take care of that, though. And I’m pretty good, if I do say so myself.

“Who are you?” he asked, when I came into the room.

“Friend of your daughter’s,” I said, getting to work on his cuffs. “I’ll explain later.”

Five minutes and two broken lockpicks later, he was free, and and alarm went off.

Of course.

We ran for the elevator, but there were a bunch of gorgeous and deadly looking people coming from that side of the hallway. We took the stairs.

I’d like to say I was cool, calm, and collected through this whole thing. I wasn’t. I may have screamed once or twice. Canis led the way, half dragging me behind him, and he was strong. Like, really strong.

When we reached the lobby, Red’s standoff was still in progress until we showed up. Then the guns started firing. Canis ran through them like they were nothing. I screamed again, and ran after him. I probably looked about as crazy as anyone in the group, right at that moment. But there was no other choice, and I’d just sort of said 'screw it’ and decided I might as well go for it.

On the way out, I grabbed Red’s hand and dragged her after me, because no way in hell was she getting shot if I could help it.

She screamed, “I told you to stay behind!”

“And aren’t you glad I didn’t!” I shouted back.

We burst out the doors and kept running. We didn’t stop until we made it to my car. Nice, nondescript exit. But we were safe.

* * *

That wasn’t the end of it. Red’s old bosses were going to make things difficult for her from then out. And difficult for anyone associated with her. My office got burned to the ground a few days after we made it out. I saw it on the news- we were hiding in a motel across town. Their house got destroyed.

We went into hiding. Red dyed her hair. Canis and I cut ours short. Things were rough for a while after that, and I think Red felt pretty guilty about screwing my whole life up.

When she finally got herself mentally stable enough to bring it up, though, I just shrugged. “I didn’t have anything there I couldn’t leave behind, anyway,” I said. And it was true. It’d been a long time since I’d been honest enough with myself to really put down roots.

“Besides,” I continued with a little smile, leaning in. “I think it’s worth it.”

This time when she kissed me, I kissed back. And it was even better.


End file.
